Comics2Film turns 10
It’s been an exhausting couple of weeks. I’ve been working feverishly to Comics2Film.com relaunched for its 10th anniversary.
10 years online. That’s freakin’ old for a website.
But the site has shed it’s “Darth Joker” skin and has a snazzy new look and feel for the 20th century.
…er…crap. It’s already the 21st Century, ain’t it?
But, hey! The site looks great and we’re giving away free stuff every day!
Stop by and read about comic book movies, and take some stuff off our hands already!
Read Moreb2evo 1.8
It’s a big week for b2evolution fans. The official beta release of version 1.8 is out and installed on this here blog.
I just upgraded. The install process is still not for the faint-hearted (back up a bunch of stuff, delete a bunch of stuff, get ready to redo your customizations), but I personally had no difficulties with it.
I was calling on obsolete thing in my custom skins, but it was fixed with changes to two files.
Other than that, I can’t wait to see what’s new. I understand performance improvements are in the offing and there are a bajillion new anti-spam tools.
CHEESE IT, SPAMMERS!
Read MoreActionopolis.com
Site Name: Actionopolis.com
Site URL: http://www.actionopolis.com
Back in 2005 I wrote two Juvenile Fiction novels for Komikwerks, which were to be published under their Actionopolis banner. The publishers, Shannon Denton and Patrick Coyle, were struggling to keep their webcomics portal going while launching this new book company and realized they needed technical help in both endeavors. They brought me in December on as a partner in order to leverage my web skills.
By the end of February we had Actionopolis.com online, ready to promote the book launch. The site needed to be attractive and agile…displaying the books, enabling easy updates and inviting the authors and illustrators from the line to participate in adding content to the site.
Patrick Coyle worked up the initial visual design for the site with input from Shannon and myself.
I handled the technical aspected of breaking the visuals down to CSS/XHTML and installing the content management backend. Over the six months leading up to the actual launch of the books, I’ve continued to extend the content managment system and alter the look of the site.
In late June we decided that coding for 800×600 was resulting in a cramped, cluttered front page that probably only accomdated a small fraction of the audience. I revamped the design to widen it for a 1024 pixel screen and reduced a lot of the textual clutter. This meant that four of the seven launch books were now completely visible above the fold.
Skills Employed
- Installed the surprisingly flexible b2evolution as our primary Content Management (CM) system.
- Employed intensive PHP scripting to push the CMS beyond its primary blogging purpose and into a book-centric system.
ShannonDenton.com
Site Name: ShannonDenton.com
Site URL: http://www.shannondenton.com
My buddy Shannon Denton wanted a website that he could easily update to promote himself and his fine works as a comic creator/publisher/animator/dude. So naturally he got his partners in crime to work up a site for him.
Patrick Coyle worked up the visual design for the site based on Shannon’s mandate that it make him look “as cool as a NASCAR driver”.
I handled the technical aspected of breaking the visuals down to CSS/XHTML and installing the content management backend.
And lo…ShannonDenton.com was born.
Skills Employed
- Installed b2evolution as our primary Content Management (CM) system.
- Employed some clever PHP scripting to allow Shannon to update various aspects of the site completely through the blogging interface.
- Attempted an integration of Plogger gallery, which remains incomplete at the time of this writing while we wait for Shannon to upload his artwork.
QSoft Guide
Site Name: QSoft Guide
Site URL: http://www.qsoftguide.com
This past weekend saw the launch of a website I’ve been working on for several months. QSoftGuide.com is the website for a long-running and well-respected resource in the arena of quality and process improvement. More than just a catalog of software, books and other publications, the Guide aims to help decision makers in the realm of business and manufacturing learn about the tools, techniques and experts that can help them implement QA strategies.
QSoft Guide was purchased last year by IDEACore, who I’ve been working for since last summer. The previous guide site suffered from a dated design and was locked into a proprietary, hosted commerce system that made maintaining the catalog problematic. IDEACore aimed to bring the guide into the 21st Century and free it from the constraints it suffered under.
This project required extensive work from me in developing the technological backbone of the site. My goal was to convert it from a clunky site that was difficult to manage to a flexible site that was easy to update on an ongoing basis.
Most of the work required PHP/MySQL coding. Work in the cart also involved making use of the Smarty template engine for PHP, including template editing as well as a few custom-coded Smarty plugins.
Skills Employed
- Installed and evaluated various eCommerce solutions.
- Finally installed X-Cart as the new eCommerce solution (cart).
- Wrote custom scripts to move data exported from the proprietary cart (in an Excel spreadsheet) to the X-Cart tables.
- Installed and evaluated various content management systems.
- Finally installed b2evolution as our primary Content Management (CM) system.
- Coded various scripts which are utilized on the site’s index page to bring content from the cart and CM into focus on the front page.
- Implemented a managed database solution for allowing a repository of downloadable software demo files along with a demographic and contact info collection system used when demo downloads are requested.
- Wrote a unified search script that could accept search words and return results from the cart, CM and demo repository. The search words can be one or more words or quoted phrases. The search is capable of AND/OR logic, although this was disabled in the interest of keeping the search form compact.
- Coded various bridging scripts to link items in the cart to articles in the CM. This allows QSoft editors to easily expand product pages to display links to related: articles, reviews, consultant entries, demo downloads and more.
- Coded special reports to give the QSoft editors better reporting about the contents of the cart.
As with past IDEACore projects, the graphical and aesthetic design, including the new compass logo for the site, was created by Brianna Roberts.
Read MoreRick Ruggles Custom Jewelry
Site Name: Rick Ruggles Custom Jewelry Design
Site URLs:
http://www.rickruggles.com/rickruggles/morsecode.html and
http://www.rickruggles.com/rickruggles/xox.html
Here’s some webwork I did recently, utilizing JavaScript.
I was contracted by White Rabbit Graphic Design, who was in the midst of revamping the website of artist and jewelry-maker Rick Ruggles.
For his new jewelry line, Rick wanted a form for shoppers that would allow them to see a preview of the product they were shopping, which would change as they changed their order parameters. There’s a morse code design, which Rick inscribes with a secret message specified by the shopper, and also the XOX line.
There were about 20 variations on each product line that had to be previewed for the shoppers.
The morse code line was particularly challenging, because not only would the image change as the user made selections, but the form itself would change in certain cases.
The job went fairly quickly…I think about 10 days between initial contact and the site going live. It’s probably the most extensive JavaScript programming I’ve done on any given page. It also involved interfacing with third-party shopping cart software.
Rick and LJ at White Rabbit seemed pretty happy with the final result. Rick reported selling a ring in the first 24 hours of the site going live, so I guess the form is effective.
Read More
Rob Elsewhere...